“Don’t name the boat right away. Sail the boat a while — it will name itself.”
Diane was raised in Missouri and is very much true to the state slogan. After “are you sure?” for the hundredth time, Show Me seemed appropriate. Diane wasn’t thrilled about the other reading, but consented.
“We are Trekkies, and in a weak moment I used my wife’s computer name.” His Flying Dutchman was named Widow Maker — after he sank it.
An old Scottish word D.A.M.P. thought just right for a floating party barge: “to hold a merry meeting, with noise and riot, but without doing injury to anyone. It includes the idea of a wasteful use of food and of intemperate use of strong drink.”
John Jamieson’s Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language
When they chartered a forty-footer in 2006, people asked who else was sailing. The answer was always “just us”. They bought the San Juan in 2007 and learned to sail her with just the two of them, so the name stuck — though Aggie often calls her “Baby”.
The unit of beauty required to launch exactly one ship — Helen of Troy’s face having launched a thousand.
More will be added as they come in.
If your boat’s name has a story, send it to fla.lmsa@gmail.com.
